


Eternal Return

by JDylah_da_Kylah



Series: You Only Meant Well? [11]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AFAB Frisk, Chara Being An Asshole, Chara Swearing, Flavor Text Narrator Chara, Friendship/Love, Gen, Heavy Angst, I Don't Even Know, I Made Myself Cry, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Non-Binary Frisk, Possession, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route - "I want to stay with you.", Unresolved Emotional Tension, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-01 17:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10195373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kylah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kylah
Summary: You tell a joke about a kid who slept in the soil.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "What if, some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence— . . . even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'
> 
> Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? . . . Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life _to crave nothing more fervently_ than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?"  
>  (Friedrich Nietzsche, _The Gay Science_ , aphorism 341. Walter Kaufmann, translator.)

"W-why did you bring them _here_?"

Alphys hovers in the doorway, wringing her claws until they chip, wrinkling her nose at the sharp scent of disinfectant and blinking at the bright, bright lights which, same hue as they are, hold none of the warmth as used to flood the lab, back when he kept it so . . .

Humans whisk up and down the corridor behind her; nervously she steps across the threshold, lest someone trip over her tail. Most of them are nurses, so they've learned the word—caretakers—but some wear the universal white-coat—

Still, this place . . .

What place is this to bring the child?

Toriel sits on the floor next to the bed where the child lays sedated— _They are not fallen down, do not look at us like that, Alphys—it is a deep sleep, the doctor has said—do not look so worried_ —her great head resting on the guardrail. There are no chairs to accommodate her, but even on the floor it doesn't matter—except for the loss of dignity, of course—which she doesn't seem to mind—

But seeing the former queen—

"T-Toriel—"

The Boss Monster lifts her head, looks at Alphys with those deep-dark-vermilion eyes, finds she doesn't have the strength to speak. The day and night have been too much a nightmare.

Instead it's Sans, standing near the doorway, just as obviously anxious as Al is, who finally drops an answer.

"al, when . . . chara took control of them . . ." He gestures helplessly to Frisk, to the bandages around their arms, the gauze taped to their cheek where nails had flashed . . . "they must have fought. our frisk . . . they're still in there, al. but chara . . . listen, we didn't know what else to do except to bring them here. i wanted to come to you—that's why i called you here—but al, just then, frisk needed human medicine, and that you and i don't know."

"When w-will they wake up?"

"that's where we need you, al."

He steps forward, staring derisively at the patient chart clipped to the foot of the bed. Alphys studies it a moment, then realizing what hell they must have faced in trying to explain that they _are_ Frisk's family—no, there's no Human emergency contact—just them—so please stop asking, as if—

"first off . . . al, give me a pen."

There's always one somewhere in her pockets—she fishes—pulls out something of a novelty, a pen shaped like some cat-eared anime character whose name Sans has long forgotten.

"H-here."

Wordlessly, frustration pouring from his SOUL such that even Al can feel it, he scribbles out the "F" that someone ignorant had written next to the child's name.

Then:

  
"al, humans don't know anything about their own SOULs. not really. they know they're powerful, they probably remember—some of them—something about how the barrier was sealed. but i don't know, it's probably a myth to them. humans don't much believe in magic anymore, and certainly not us, but here we are."

"W-what are you s-saying? Sans—"

"we needed these doctors to keep frisk's body safe . . . but, al, when they wake up, who knows who we're dealing with? the doctors here won't understand about chara. they'll think that it's a mental problem, or . . ."

"So now it's up to us, is it not, dear one?" Toriel speaks softly from the corner of the room, her white fur looking somehow garish against the unnaturally white walls. "What happens to our child now?"

But Sans shakes his head, sidling closer on slippered feet to stand next to the bed, to take the child's heavy hand. "not just us, tori."

* * *

 _Why are you doing this? Y-you got what you wanted, more than once. Y-you even_ told _me that if I were to recreate this world, another path would be a better choice._

**It's just a game, that's all it was. I wanted to see how long I could make you dance.**

_You—_

**Don't look at me like that. You really think I'm just going to sit there while you live out this fantasy? Now that everyone just wants to get** _**rid** _ **of me . . . for what? Because they're afraid? Because I'M the monster, the murderer, the demon?**

_But—but that's not true. Chara. No one hates you. Chara. They all love you, still, no matter what you've done. A-and M-mom and Asgore and Asriel all—they never saw you as—you aren't a—no matter who's called you that, who's said—_

**Don't EVER lie to me. How many times has** _**he** _ **killed us? You call that love?**

_Sans knew what you would do. He didn't want me to give you . . ._

**What? Your SOUL? We already share that, don't we? You gave yourself to me ages ago. Stop RUNNING from me, Frisk. We're** _**inseparable.**_

* * *

It's the early-morning hours, and no more answers have been given, none are there to give; gently he's coaxed Tori to go home, although he suspects she's left with Alphys—no doubt Asgore is at the latter's house, with Asriel and Undyne and Papyrus—no doubt Tori wouldn't want to face this night alone. But she needs to sleep, whether she believes she does or not, and so, ironically, it's Sans who foregoes sleep to keep the night-shift watch.

Apart from a few pagers beeping up and down the corridor, the hospital is quiet now. Sometimes a patient cries out, but always to that cry come footsteps, hurrying . . . Seeing how they care for one another, Sans decides that he can forgive Humans their ignorance . . . even when such a simple act of ignorance feels amplified—because it's ignorance of Frisk—Frisk who is so fragile and so precious, no matter how DETERMINED they may be—

 _pal, i know you're in there. i know i haven't always believed it, even when—even when it's_ you. _i know in some timelines i've said—i've said some awful things—but frisk, i know it wasn't ever you who . . ._

_huh? you already know all this? heh. of course you do._

_just . . ._

_please, buddy, if you're listening . . ._

* * *

_Sans?_

**Heh. Funny man, we've heard that line before.**

_Please, Sans—_

**Don't believe it, Frisk. Just like him: when we wake up and it's** _**me** _ **, he'll just kill us again. So much for that promise, huh? Not to his precious Tori or to you. 'No more RESETs'—**

**Ah. Ha ha.**

_**Spare** _ **me.**

* * *

_Sans?_

_Please._

_. . . help._

* * *

He sits where Tori sat, though he's pulled up some flimsy plastic chair and can rest his skull on the edge of Frisk's pillow, rather than the guardrail; staring at the injured child, sleeping so unnaturally, he finds that somehow it's harder now to grapple with what he's always chalked up as simple truth, what he's told Alphys, what he knows is true. What he should have expected . . .

What else? What else but this? Could Frisk have held them at bay indefinitely?

No matter the hope they've given him, the answer he can't help but fathom most is no, and that's no fault of the kid's. Something, _something_ was bound to—

Uneasily he's had the thought, and for a while now, that maybe there isn't a way to make this better. Maybe there's nothing they can do to separate Chara from Frisk. Nothing they can do to keep the Human child safe . . .

 _doc, wish you were here. even if you couldn't help us_ there _, if you were here—maybe—somehow—_

Through half-closed eyes he stares at them, feels SOUL-sick at the sight: the sheets and the bed are far too large and too many pillows seem to swallow them, their stocky form lost between all that and the bandages and the strange tubular apparatus that's connected to their veins, that intravenous drip—

Worse than that, far worse than that, is the fact that he can't feel their SOUL.

He feels _a_ SOUL, of course, but now . . . but now . . .

It carries the resonance of Frisk's, almost as an undercurrent, and yet most of what glares back at him is nothing more or less than Chara—and that signature of theirs, such that it is, which he's felt all those years ago, back in the Beginning of All Things as they passed with Asriel through—he doesn't know—not Snowdin, but perhaps near the CORE, as they strayed from the castle? Well, it doesn't matter where . . . he's never forgotten . . .

And first seeing Frisk not as themself but bearing that look of _theirs_ instead—

It's no less profound a reckoning, not even after all these timelines, all these iterations, all these years it seems.

And it's far worse in its own way now, given everything that's come before.

Because it's brought them all to this, this Human place of healing, the sedated child in the bed, Toriel somewhere without him—when what has she just told him but last night—that she needs him, too?—and all the promises between them, he and Frisk and Asriel and Tori, spoken and implied—

* * *

 _i can't give up on you, frisk. i . . . even when i killed you—no—when i killed_ them _. . . i . . . even with that second strike, the one i never dodge—even after all these times—the sheer_ power _of them—after that . . . i thought . . ._

_chara, are you happy with all this?_

_no, you won't_ ever _be happy._

_so what do you even want?_

_why don't you stop all this?_

* * *

_frisk._

_please, kiddo._

_can you hear me?_

_are you listening?_

* * *

The thoughts, perhaps without his knowing, become manifest: into the abyss he casts ropes of cyan light.

* * *

**Interesting . . .**

**Fine.**

**Cry out into the darkness.**

**See if he can SAVE you.**

_You're . . . so sure . . . he can't . . . but it isn't me who needs it, Chara . . ._

**. . .**

**You really ARE an idiot.**

* * *

He stirs, half-sleeping now, aware of finite things, lingering trails of consciousness—the tiled floor beneath his feet, the soft press of the pillow there against his skull, the depression from the child's head. Wearily he glances up, sees sharp eyes roving there beneath the lids, sees tremors rolling down the child's arms until the whole of them shudders.

These things did not wake him.

He doesn't dare tap the little button they were shown which would call a nurse, because this subtle struggle is not the result of anything they'd understand.

No, it was the tug against his SOUL that woke him—that sweet familiar dearness—even if it's their desperate fear he recognizes—the desperate fear he's always felt from them, when it was their body shambling around with dust-caked hands and—

Their eyes flash wide—Frisk's body it may be but that gaze is not their own—

" **So you feel them calling for you, funny man? I'm not surprised**."

"you got what you wanted. more than once. so what the hell—"

Teeth gleam—not in that horrid grin—a sort of disappointed grimace.

" **I thought you'd learned your lesson. That's too bad**."

Pain flares through him suddenly—instinctively he glances down—there is no wound—no DETERMINATION dripping, so much like Human blood—his left hand clenches spasmodically, magic searing through it, the manifestation of all his fear and rage at them—at them—but there's nothing doing—no—and the result is that it _hurts_ , all that potential energy sparked into being with no outlet, nowhere to go, except to dance among his metacarpals—

But behind all that, all of it, he recognizes that the pain is not his own, nor even a creation of Chara's to toy with him, to fling his mind back to _those_ runs, to trip him up and twist reality and snare him into doing the unthinkable—

No—it's Frisk—Frisk, still somehow clinging to their SOUL and so desperately reaching out to his because that hold is tenuous and he knows they don't mean to hurt him, would never, never—maybe they don't even know—

_what can i do? frisk, kiddo, tell me. tell me and . . ._

" **What, you'll make this right? Make this all better? Slap some sticky bandage on it? Huh. You know, it'd be easier if you'd just kill me, like you always did**."

Hands shoved resolutely in his pockets, Sans stands next to the bed, staring down at them, the child, their face so passive now: deceptive: there's no expression there to read. Just those words they speak, just the terrified echo of Frisk who this time, this time, can't let them win—not that they've never tried—

" **What's a promise, anyway? You've made it before, you'll make it again. What'll** _ **she**_ **know, huh? You've carried that guilt already. Yeah. You're just a hypocrite. All of us are, there's nothing tragic about that. So. Funny man. What'll it be? You want Frisk to suffer? This all hurts them, you know. Kill me and get it over with**."

"chara."

_they climbed the mountain for a reason. they were willing to die to become a god, all for the sake of killing everyone. what's life to you, chara? it's not worth much. but still—_

_what tori wrote—_

_promises are everything._

* * *

"I  r e f u s e."

* * *

_See? S-see, he won't—there's nothing to fear—_

* * *

The child opens their eyes.

He doesn't know how long it's been, nor does it particularly matter; outside the shuttered windows, the morning waxes grim, a smear of grey-cast clouds and no sunlight at all, just haze. From so many stories up, the buildings down below are lost; to the east, so are the woods—so even is the mountain.

He's thought briefly of texting Alphys, asking for her help again, suggesting that they can only solve so much in such a stalemate—perhaps after that initial struggle, with Chara's rage finally given an outlet, however self-destructive it had been—they'll be more rational—

But if they aren't?

Unseen is the struggle between them for the body, and the SOUL.

But that fragile Human body can only take so much. Is further damage worth the risk, or—

Or what? This can't go on forever. Even now, without the full spread and glory of the true laboratory, he isn't sure what he and Al could figure out—not that they have the time.

He considers briefly, too, texting Tori and asking her to bring the prince—but Asriel's been through enough—he doesn't need to face that fiend again—

" **Fiend? Called myself and been called worse**."

They sit up, slowly, shaking Frisk's hair from their eyes, pulling absently at the needle for the intravenous drip until both that and the tape are torn off, a single bead of blood dark against Frisk's tawny skin.

" **This is a boring game**."

"so i'll ask you the same question, then." Sans eyes them steadily, keeping his voice low, hating the words he has to speak, the feel of them, the taste. "why don't you kill us? now's your chance. you've got control again."

Another tremulous echo—he can almost hear Frisk's panicked voice—

_Sans! What—_

_(relax, kiddo. trust me.)_

The body shudders; when the child swings their legs over the bed and tries to stand on barren feet they stumble, clutching at the guardrail with a look of bitter resignation. When they glance up again at him, dark eyes meet darker eyesockets, not so much a grim reflection as weights counterbalanced on a scale.

" **Well. It** _ **would**_ **be interesting, killing you all Surface-side. Ah, but here's the problem, funny man: I'm just a Human here. I have no real power by myself, and the crybaby doesn't have a SOUL these days. So who'd take mine then, hm? I don't have anyone to play with anymore. And so if I were to kill you all, I'd just be a genocidal murderer and—well—the laws for murder aren't a thing of MERCY. When Humans kill Humans, it's not as simple as DETERMINATION and SAVE points**."

A pause.

"so this does nothing for you."

" **What? I didn't say that**."

Their face contorts a little, another tremor wracking their frame as involuntary tears well suddenly within their eyes; Sans feels Frisk still clinging to their SOUL and his, stubborn as they always are—

And then there's a subtle shift, a spark, a flash, a thought put into his mind, a memory of some other timeline, something Frisk must realize—an encounter with a Monster—Woshua, it was—and a sense of Chara's wicked pleasure at a joke they told—a joke that made no sense to Frisk but still it's stuck with them and—

It was a joke about—

* * *

_Sans, please understand . . ._

* * *

The proverbial pin drops; Chara stares at him, that small aberration in his smile, the flickering of lightpoints in his eyes. The body still doesn't _fit_ , isn't really theirs; they reach for him with one clenched fist as if to strike a blow, one blow, that's all they'd need—but that savage intent isn't wholly behind it—no—because there, always there, grimly hanging on, fettering them, almost always their foil, there is Frisk—

Frisk, who as good as flings their contested SOUL towards him, welcoming that light, that deep-blue light almost as dark as Toriel's, welcoming now the telekinetic fetters—

**NO! Goddamn it, no, you bastard, you son of a stupid—**

And now it's Frisk's turn to laugh, a weary sound; well-worth Chara's onslaught is that moment of triumph flashed between them, the skeleton and Human child.

* * *

Into the darkness, then.

* * *

The darkness is forgiving to those who know where they're going, and to those who travel willingly.

Not so much to those who deem it prudent to fight the whole time tooth-and-nail.

Sans feels no pity for them when their feet hit ground and the child doubles over, retching on an empty stomach; they've sown the seeds of their own misery; it wasn't Frisk who fought him, after all, who tried to wrench that SOUL-cast-blue from him, even in the darkness—

But uneasily, he doesn't know how much Frisk feels in this; where once he'd rub the Human child's back, now he lets cyan light find them, the resonance of them that's (much to his surprise) neither pleased nor disgusted but somehow, somehow, affording Chara pity still. He hopes it's a sort of comfort, apology enough.

When finally they straighten up and glare at him, wiping at their mouth—" **Asshole** . . ."—its only to stare around them, riveted, rigid. Beneath their feet are golden flowers; above their head filters down the faintest light of that grey dawn. Ruined pillars on time-broken-spines teeter up towards such a sky, vine-choked; the air is cold and that stupid gown the doctors gave them does absolutely nothing, not even offers them some modesty, what with that damn string always coming untied in the back—

Sans chuckles dryly, pulls at something he's kept tucked under one arm, something he grabbed just before he caught them and stepped into the darkness. "here."

Their sweater—more accurately, Frisk's. Chara wrinkles their nose, the periwinkle and magenta having always been distasteful.

"put it on. when all this is over, i don't want tori blaming me for frisk catching a cold."

" **So you think you can win**?"

He shakes his head. "it's not that simple. but."

One slippered foot kicks at the earth for just a moment, and then he crouches down, back half-turned to the child—

* * *

_You . . . do trust me . . ._

_. . . Sans . . ._

* * *

A glance cast over his shoulder, nothing more, and they don't know if he felt or heard them but it doesn't matter, doesn't matter, because the trust and hope are there, unshakable, beyond a doubt—even from him—even from him.

* * *

"so, chara, for such a messed up kid you laugh a lot—even if it's at some pretty messed up things. i'll bet you've told some jokes, back in the day."

A restive snort; the child crouches next to him, trails their hands through the flowers for a moment before their knuckles wax bone-white. Much as Sans expected, they begin tearing the plants up by the fistful, clods of earth and roots and stems and leaves—

He's definitely glad to have left Asriel out of this . . .

When most of the flowers are cleared, they set to work on the soil, the ancient earth refusing to yield for quite some time beneath their scrabbling fingertips, dirt caking their nails where yesterday it was Frisk's blood. The sterile bandages around their hands and arms grow soil-dark and slough against their skin. Eventually, though, they break through the upper crust and the progress becomes easier; Sans deliberates a moment on whether to lend a hand, but there's something in this act which must be wholly theirs.

* * *

**So she planted the flowers here? Good thing.**

**Decomposition is good for the soil.**

_Chara . . . don't say that, it can't be true._

**Well, flowers saved your life.**

_. . . And yours, too, before—_

* * *

It's an hour or more before the child scrambles from the hole they've dug, the patch of flowers thoroughly destroyed, the pit itself too deep for them to jump from; when they hold up a muddied hand, this time Sans helps.

Together they stare down, it seems, into the abyss.

* * *

" **The kid was me. Down there. In the joke**."

"yeah. i'd gathered that."

* * *

The child, exhausted and shivering, sits down on the ground, just at the lip of Chara's grave. Sans stands there for a moment, studies them, searches for something familiar in the sweat-streaked face—some soft light in the eyes, or an echo there against his SOUL. Something, anything. Now that they're here it seems—he doesn't know—it worries him: what good could come of this? What solution? Nothing, it seems, nothing: just a desecrated grave and the desiccated skeleton of a Human child glaring up at them, brittle and half-buried still.

"you said you aren't a problem to be solved."

The child kicks their feet, eyes him distrustfully.

In vain he searches for Frisk's resonance, for some sense of their presence, as if such a reminder of his friend might be enough to guide him now. But the truth of the matter is that this moment somehow frightens him far more than any iteration of the Judgment Hall, any time it's _them_ who emerges from the golden light.

Because then he knows what will happen next—as awful as it is, that certitude—

But now?

* * *

Something bids him hold his nonexistent tongue.

* * *

Finally the child looks at him again, wondering what it must be like to stare down at something so much like himself.

* * *

" **Took trying to kill me to get you to talk. Heh. Guess** _ **I**_ **didn't say much then. How about round two and** _ **quid pro quo**_?"

He doesn't take the bait—it isn't worth it.

"you said you were bored. nothing'll change, chara. i think you already know that." His hands are clenched resolutely in his pockets; his eyesockets are dark, if not entirely, the faintest pinpricks there a testament somehow to that hope of his—that stupid, foolish hope in Frisk. The same hope as bid and bids him still to keep his promise, so many times, to Toriel. The irony and his own apathy amuse them greatly—

Vaguely they consider toying with that, too, toying with him as they toyed with Asriel so many centuries ago: he'd be fun to pick apart, in his own way . . . A promise kept but at what cost? If not genocide outright, the slaughter of so many innocents—hadn't he said as much? Death and anarchy were what happened when guys like him were lazy—

And now? Now he can gloss over it, can't he, that pathetic selfish fault of his, because everyone still lives, because they're on the Surface, because, oh, look, he and the mother-and-martyr-and-sacrificial-goat are lovers—forget the Royal Guards, staring into the fiery cauldron of hell—it's _they_ whose love will end there—

"didn't bring you here just so you can stare into a mirror, chara."

**Well.**

"fair's fair. _do ut des._ "

" **Since when do you know Latin**?"

"i could ask the same."

An unneeded sigh from him, that gesture which always infuriates them—it's a wasted thing, a hollow thing, like a handshake signifying nothing, like a saccharine grin, like an offer of MERCY which was just a ruse—in that, for that, he was more savage than any of the rest of them.

"let's just get to the point." He gestures down to the pit, to the grave, to the skeleton below. "i can't believe you were always . . . what you are. frisk's said as much to asriel, so many times—that something made him who he was—that something, and i mean more than alphys, turned him into flowey."

" **Of course you're blaming me**."

"no. i won't tell you your sins, chara. you already know them. you can feel them, which is interesting—i'd think a true sociopath wouldn't . . . which is to say nothing of what you call yourself. see, and that's the thing—what i said to frisk—it's true for you. it has to be. you wouldn't feel your sins if you didn't feel anything at all—if there wasn't a glimmer of a good person inside of you, somewhere. maybe . . . maybe it really is just frisk. maybe, chara, you're purely made of LOVE—maybe you've never loved."

" **Stop guessing, like you're a head-doctor. That's all anyone did. Tried to figure me out. Tried to . . . make me behave**."

"after what you've done—"

" **You said you wouldn't—** "

"and i won't."

* * *

Sans reaches for Frisk, his friend, the angel—not that he believes in angels, really, but . . . maybe they're as close to being one as he, in his disbelief, will grant. And if that's so—

What's Chara?

He's heard them call themself a demon—

But what child would think that?

Sans reaches again for Frisk, startled at the _emptiness_ , the silence.

Suddenly the Underground feels very vast, and very empty, and the world above and the worlds which have been before are so very distant—

The child smiles at him, smiles with Frisk's smile, a stolen remnant from a stolen SOUL.

His own SOUL aches for retribution, his hand and eye flaring bright with pain, with the magic that he knows he cannot use. There's no FIGHTing here—nothing to win—

* * *

_frisk? hey, kiddo._

_please—_

_you're my friend._

_you always were._

_no matter what i said. i—_

_i never meant—_

_i wanted you to RESET and then i thought—i thought—_

* * *

" **You thought you'd be rid of me**?"

* * *

_just don't give up. i . . . did . . ._

* * *

The child kicks their heels against the dirt, drops down into the grave again, begins picking at the bones—such fragile things they are that it doesn't take much for them to splinter—even beneath bare feet and the child's weight they crack—the femur and the radius, the clavicle and spine—until finally they pick up the skull, study it a moment, fling it down, stomp on it with all their might.

When they look up at Sans again from that shallow scraping in the earth, amidst the wreckage of their own remains, their dirty face is tear-streaked.

A thread, tremulous, the faintest thing, from Frisk. Not even a word, a thought, emotions—just—

* * *

The child's chest and shoulders heave as he stares down at them, the depths of his eyes darker than the earth or the perpetual half-night of the cavern but for the wan-distant sky above.

" **I think you can guess why I climbed the mountain. I know you know why** _ **they**_ **did, too. But even before . . . I was just an awful thought. I wasn't supposed to happen, but I did.**

" **Once, when I was still naïve, when I was still . . . a kid . . . I tried being nice. I thought being nice could change the world, no matter how shitty life got. It didn't, and it still doesn't, and finally I, the awful thought, had a thought equally as terrible:**

" **If love can't fix this world, what can? Who deserves it? Anyone? Certainly not Humans, who tear each other to pieces, who screw you over if you're different, if you're strange, if you're— And Monsters? Well. War came for a reason, and not just because Humans are xenophobic bastards. Humans fear each other, too, and I don't think I need to tell you how badly that can end.**

**"So I damned to hell anyone and everyone who'd hurt me, who'd hurt others; they didn't deserve to live, not one of them. But there was nothing I could do—a kid, an awful thought against a far worse world? No, it's like I've said, when Humans kill their own . . . But all I wanted, all I wanted, was for it to be GONE. For everyone to get what was coming to them.**

" **But there was nothing I could do. So I couldn't end the world. But I could end myself, and I figured that was good enough. It wasn't worth it, not when there was nothing doing, nothing fixed, nothing changed, no matter who promised it, no matter how hopeful Humans can be—for so short a time—take away that hope and it's back to the same Goddamn stupid shit. By then I fucking** _ **hated**_ **—** "

"hey, watch your language." Steadily—caught up in their tirade, they're forced to glance at him again, anchored ( **Little Friskling, you're still hanging in there?** ) by that languid, lilting voice of his. "the kiddo's listening."

" **So I climbed the mountain.**

" **And instead of finding vicious beasts who'd have killed me to steal my SOUL, Asriel found me. He wouldn't let me die. I was weak—that's what it was—I called out for help. I was so—**

" **So he took me to his mother, to Toriel. They wouldn't let me die. I didn't know what else to do—and they were** _ **smart**_ **—they hid the knives.**

" **But I'm not an idiot. I waited. I realized that there was a reason Humans were afraid of Monsters—what creature would a Monster be if they absorbed a Human's SOUL? They'd be a God. A God who can do anything. So . . . why not try that? Why not bide my time, make friends with that little whelp, play good-child for the hypocrite who calls herself a—** "

"D o n ' t  s a y  a  w o r d  a g a i n s t—"

" **But then I'd get to die. I'd be a GOD. I'd make the whole world pay—the Monsters who aren't guiltless, and not a one of you is free of guilt, and all Humanity. The filthy wretches. This Goddamn WRETCHED WORLD**."

"i get the idea. so."

Sans shifts idly, hoping to hide the tremors running up and down his spine.

"you got so frustrated that you decided even trying to make the smallest difference in the world with kindness wasn't worth it, huh?"

" **There's no point to that. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever ends**."

"but you didn't expect to come back, did you? someone shook the hourglass."

They are silent for a moment.

" **And then Asriel got Us killed. He proved my point: kindness gets you nowhere. We should have killed them when We could . . . but no . . . The pathetic crybaby doubted me, doubted Us, doubted Our power. We could have DESTROYED them, the two of Us. Together**."

"he never doubted, chara. he saw it for what it was. he knew what he was doing."

" **I was lost. For so long, I was lost. I was an awful thought, a distant memory in the Humans' world and yours. I—** "

Again the body shudders; the child sways, perilously close to the edge of the pit, however shallow it may be; eerily, though, eerily, they merely throw back their head and laugh.

"you laugh a lot. how come?"

" **Take your pick of reasons, funny man**." They twist their head, still smiling Frisk's smile, still reeling at the edge of their own grave. " **Actually, I've had my fill of screaming. It's too damn funny anyway. Everyone doomed to the same death, the same destruction, the same** _ **nothingness**_ **. All their petty squabbles, all their useless hopes and dreams that won't amount to anything . . . all their secrets. Ha. The idiots**."

"you know, chara, the funny thing is . . . once, i might have even agreed with you. i, uh, wouldn't draw the same conclusions, but . . . take it from me, kid. i've been in this world and all the worlds before as long as you have, if not longer, and i can understand. i can. we've all seen bad things, we've all done our share of wrong."

" **So why preach to a two-kid choir? Frisk doesn't need to hear it; I don't give a shit. Besides, who are** _ **you**_ **to judge? You've killed kids on sight before you fell for her and made that promise. Ha. Funny thing, that promise. If you hadn't . . . I'd have had a far worse time**."

"that was then, chara. but now?"

Restively he spreads his hands, magic still seeping from his metacarpals; his eyesocket yet pounds with it, a searing thing, far too reminiscent of the scraping of their knife against his clavicle and ribs and sternum in the death-blow.

"let me ask you something, chara, since you call yourself a demon."

The child snorts, flashes him the smile that isn't Frisk's at all. His own grin widens, a quiet countering, belying the rapid flaring of his SOUL—the uncertainty—the fear—the hope—

"what if, some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you . . ."

* * *

They are silent, only half-listening indolently.

**Nothing useful.**

Feel Frisk tugging.

They are not begging now.

The thread of Frisk, sorrowful, pitying and by turn pitiful, grown stronger—not strong enough to eradicate an enemy, oh no—but in a different way—some unknown way—far more—

* * *

"chara. a human wrote those words. so let me ask you this: you really want to destroy this 'wretched world'? To force a RESET? for what reason, kid? to replay this same damn misery? you said this was a boring game . . . well, chara, you could flip the hourglass, i guess. but—"

" **YOU are the speck of dust**."

"and so are you, and so is frisk, and so are all of us."

Sans reaches out—pulls them from the graveside, back toward solid ground, the both of them stumbling through mounds of dirt and martyred flowers.

"is this all you want, chara? your life ended centuries ago. that was your chance. your sacrifice, willing or no, paved the way for this. please, chara. some day, you've got to learn when to quit. i can't afford not to care anymore, chara—i can't afford to let you walk by me in snowdin or waterfall or the CORE again. doesn't matter that it's Surface-side . . . you understand?"

" **So you'll kill me? Idiot. I'll just come back. I'll kill everyone you love**."

"no, chara. i won't. i haven't, and i won't. a RESET won't fix this—it's like you've always known—this world repeats itself, for good or ill.

"chara, this turn—this world—it's frisk's."

" **They gave me their SOUL**."

"we both know that's not really true. that thorn's just stuck with them, that thought, that idea—that awful thought, you said. and i know they don't know where you stop, where they begin. i don't have any answers for that. still—there's a line somewhere, and i think you know it.

"kid."

He kneels down, eye-level with them now, forces himself to look steadily into that gaze which has haunted his dreams nightly for more years than he can count. As he does he feels his dear Frisk-o again—the thrum of them, that strange gentle crackling resonance that always, inexplicably, left him feeling just a bit more hopeful—even when he'd lost all hope.

"F r i s k."

* * *

**No.**

**NO.**

**Stop it. STOP IT. Shut up.**

**Shut up and let me win.**

* * *

Frisk feels Chara straining, straining for the thing they'll never be able to obtain—Frisk's one saving grace has been just that—that the ability to SAVE and to RESET is theirs alone—

* * *

**I WILL ERASE THIS WRETCHED WORLD—**

**(So he coddles you with stories, Frisk? So he tries to wheedle his way inside our head? The one who killed us?)**

_To SAVE us, Chara. Don't you understand?_

_Don't you understand? Didn't you listen to Sans' story?_

_STOP DOING THIS._

* * *

_I'm sorry._

_I'm so sorry._

_Chara._

_Please._

* * *

**You're all so STUPID. I DON'T WANT TO BE—**

* * *

"no . . . C h a r a. let it end, kiddo. it's done. it's over. there's nothing to destroy. there's no one to kill. it's not your world anymore. i can feel it—even in you—you're doubting this, aren't you? you're tired. heh. i know that, kid. i do."

* * *

Wordless rage and greater fear, the fear far worse—

* * *

Frisk cries out for Sans, for Mom. Clings with what little strength they have to the world they, too, would once have forsaken—the world they now, irrevocably, love.

* * *

The body fights—Sans can see it in the eyes, the face, the muscles locked like _rigor mortis_. From the mouth pours vicious laughter, more a scream than anything, despite what Chara's said.

And then their hand whips out, around, nails curved like claws—

Frisk, for only the second time in this iteration of their life, FIGHTs back—but FIGHTing another Human, incorporeal or no, is far different from a Monster foe.

Sans dodges the blow, feels that quiet, gentle child's SOUL whispering to his.

* * *

_The only way._

_i can't. frisk, don't ask me to do this. please. i can't._

_Sans, it'll be okay. Trust me. Please. You said it yourself—it's over. You can't prove that to them with words. Just—get me to Mom, okay?_

* * *

Whatever argument his SOUL construes is lost as he watches them, thoroughly horror-struck, that fragile body writhing, the child fallen to their knees, the hospital bandages half-torn—the same self-destructive dance—the same welling blood—the only action left is this—if not to erase the world—then this—then this self-inflicted violence—

And Frisk's pleading—

The greatest act of MERCY that would break his heart.

* * *

_frisk._

_kiddo._

* * *

_T o r i._

_P l e a s e._

_. . ._

_forgive me._

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts/critiques/comments'n'reviews are always appreciated; I do hope you've . . . enjoyed?
> 
> This, whatever this is. Gods. I know it's supremely ambiguous; if you have questions, ask away and let's chat.
> 
> So many personal things went into this, uhm, so . . . well. Whew.
> 
> Also, there won't be an illustration for this piece. I've tried to illustrate it many times, but ultimately there's something about this which I think needs to be left to the reader's mind alone.


End file.
